


All The Little Things

by majestic_shriek



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Community: silverbullets, Gen, Hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:12:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majestic_shriek/pseuds/majestic_shriek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam’s fine, Dean tells himself - he’s whole again and his head is fine. Totally fine. But Sam just keeps forgetting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> Hurrah, schmoop! Thanks to obstinatrix checking this over, and thanks to my work and this tag for actually not coinciding for once. Written for the silverbullets prompt: "It's like riding a bike"

Dean knows he shouldn’t really be complaining, or thinking anything remotely negative at all. He’s got his brother back, and it’s all Sam. There’s no Lucifer in his grapefruit, there’s no demon blood rushing through his veins, there’s no visions popping up here and there. There’s nothing that wants Sam, there’s nothing there at all.

That’s part of it - there’s nothing; just him and Sam and a half-crazed angel being watched over by a demon, and the whole thing’s gone to fuck.

But he’s got his brother back, his full, whole, _sane_ brother, and that pushes him forward just that little bit more, at least for another hour, another day, another week.

Especially because, well, Sam needs him. Dean likes to think that Sam is perfectly fine, and he is, for all that you’d figure out from looking at him, or talking to him. He’s perfectly fine. Except for the little things.

It starts the day they check into a motel after checking Sam out of the nuthouse, leaving Cas staring vacantly at the walls. Dean doesn’t even think about that, he can’t, not yet, he just needs to check his brother out, make himself believe that it’s really true, this is really Sammy next to him in the car. After all this time with Sam half-broken in some way or the other, Dean needs to be sure.

Sam crashes and sleeps the sleep of the ages almost the minute the door of the room is open. Dean looks at him fondly, and shucks off his boots, slips off his jeans and shirt - nothing he hasn’t done before - and tucks Sammy under the covers like he used to do when Sam was a kid. He sits there on the opposite bed for a good hour, maybe more, just looking at Sam’s peaceful sleeping face, no lines, no creases, no worries. No bad dreams, just. Sleep. When Dean eventually curls up himself, it’s facing Sam, and he falls asleep looking at his full-whole-there brother.

Dean wakes before Sam, who’s still sleeping soundly, and Dean doesn’t want to wake him. He scribbles a note on a piece of paper: “Gone to get breakfast, back in a few,” and slips out of the door. Something greasy, maybe doughnuts, and maybe he can find something nice for Sam, some yoghurt and granola or some shit like that, really welcome him home.

When he gets back, Sam’s bed is empty, and a flash of panic stabs Dean in the stomach, until he hears the sound of running water in the bathroom. He breathes out deeply, and sets the breakfast stuff out onto the little table.

“Food!” he calls out, and waits for Sam to appear.

Sam doesn’t appear, and the water’s still running, but it’s not the shower. A minute or two more pass, and Dean shoves a hash brown in his mouth, and calls out round it, “Coffee’s getting cold, Sam.”

“In a minute,” comes the response, and Dean nods, and eats another. When Sam still isn’t out five minutes later, Dean starts to worry.

“Sam?” he asks. “Sam, are you alright in there?” He gets up and heads over to the bathroom door, tapping gently on it.

“I’m fine,” mumbles Sam, and Dean instantly doesn’t believe him, and a million dreadful scenarios spring to mind. _It hasn’t worked, Lucifer’s back, Sam’s soul’s gone wrong again, he’s remembering all the worst bits, why can’t anything ever just be good, just for a few days at least._

“Like hell you are,” Dean replies, and he pushes open the door, expecting resistance, or expecting his brother cowering on the floor - expecting something terrible.

Instead, Sam’s standing there in front of the sink, faucet running on full, staring at the toothbrush in his hand as if he’s never seen one before.

“Sam?” Dean asks, slowly.

“I know what this _is_ ” says Sam, still staring at the toothbrush, “but I can’t remember how to use it.”

Dean’s silent for a moment, and he wants to laugh, but the look of complete and utter confusion on Sam’s face stops him. “It’s a toothbrush, Sam,” he says, reaching out and turning off the faucet for a moment. “You brush your teeth with it.”

“Right,” says Sam, but he’s still staring at the toothbrush like he doesn’t know the way forward.

“Hey,” Dean says softly, “lemme show you.” He takes the toothbrush from Sam’s unresisting fingers, and wets it under the faucet, before squeezing on a pea-sized amount of paste. “There you go, it’s easy, remember?”

“No,” says Sam, and he sounds so forlorn and lost. “I can’t remember how to use a toothbrush, Dean. I can’t remember how to use a frigging toothbrush.”

“Hey,” repeats Dean, “if that’s the worst to come out of this, then we’re laughing, Sam. So what if you can’t remember - it’s not the end of the world. One little thing, one little thing that’s easy to learn.” He’s having to convince himself as much as he is Sam, but it’s true. If this is all that’s wrong with Sam after everything - after all the shit - then Dean’ll take it, and he’ll be grateful for it.

“Yeah, Dean,” Sam says, with a sigh, “you’re right. It’s just. I can remember other things, I can remember you, I remember how to drive, how to walk, how to kill a wendigo. I can recite the Latin to exorcise a demon, Dean, I remember all of that. Why can’t I remember a little thing like this?”

“Probably because it’s that, Sam. Just a little thing. Hey. C’mon, you’re here, aren’t you? You’re fine, Sam, you’re here, you’re healthy, you’re whole, you’re my brother. It’s just one thing. One little thing.”

Sam nods, and takes the toothbrush back from Dean, and opens his mouth. “Like this?” he says, rubbing his teeth ineffectually.

“Almost,” says Dean, and he can remember the first times he did this, standing in the bathroom with little Sam perched over the sink, trying to see into the mirror.

Sam brushes harder, mouth filling with toothpaste foam “Lmmfh tmhism?” he splutters, white foam spraying everywhere.

“You got it,” says Dean, punching him in the shoulder. “Now, spit and rinse.”

*****  
It hadn’t just been that one little thing. It was _lots_ of little things, indiscriminately and random. Sam knew how to pull on a shirt, but he couldn’t remember how to do up the buttons. He knew how to reload and fire a gun, but he couldn’t remember how to hold a knife and fork properly. He knew how to drive cars (and for once, Dean was glad that the Impala was safely locked up in storage, because there was no way he was letting his forgetful brother loose on his baby - what if he forgot how to drive her part way through?), but he couldn’t remember how to tie up his shoelaces. Sam could read lines upon lines of dense text, but he couldn’t initially remember how to turn the pages of a book. He could still cook his “signature” dish of spaghetti Os on toast, but he couldn’t remember how to brush his hair properly. Dean sorted that one out pretty damn quick. If his brother was going to insist on having hair like that, Dean wasn’t walking around with someone who looked like a very messy bird’s nest. He re-taught Sam as much as he could remember from his complicated haircare regime, which was really really unnecessarily complicated - what was wrong with wash, dry, gel and go?

It was a few weeks in to Sam being back, and Cas being a staring vegetable (“No change,” Meg had said, when she rang to check in. “He just stares at the walls, doesn’t say a word. Has them all stumped.”) when Dean finally snaps.

“Dude,” he says, “you look like a wild bushman or something. You need to shave.”

Sam blushes (through the ever thickening beard) and looks sheepish. “I can’t remember how,” he says.

“We’ve been through this,” replies Dean, mentally deciding that yep, they’re stopping at the next motel he sees so they can get Sam fixed up. “You can’t remember how to do something, you just tell me, I’ll help you out.”

“I know,” Sam fiddles with the glove compartment. “It’s just, well. I didn’t want to bother you. You’ve done so much already, you know?”

“Sam,” says Dean, turning to face him, keeping half an eye on the road ahead. “It’s fine. It’s just the little things, and you’re picking them up real quick, Sam. It’s just like riding a bike, you don’t really forget, you’re just a little rusty, and eventually, you’ll remember everything, and you’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know how to ride a bike,” Sam mutters, but he smiles back at Dean, and Dean knows he understands.

Dean pulls over, as intended, at the very next motel en route. It’s a nondescript place, but it’ll do, and he pushes Sam towards the bathroom, and grabs the shaving gear from one of the duffels.

“Right,” he says, rubbing his own chin. “I, like, shaved yesterday, so I don’t really need it, but I’ll demonstrate so you can copy, okay?” Sam nods, and Dean puts in the plug and fills the sink with warm water. Dean reaches over, and runs his hand over Sam’s own face. Sam looks a little surprised, but he doesn’t move, just lets Dean evaluate the growth there. “You’re alright just to shave normal,” Dean decides, “I think we’ve caught it before it got too much like a nest.” Sam nods again, all compliant the way he gets when Dean is teaching him something new, a little look of concentration on his face, and Dean just knows that Sam is very very carefully committing every last detail to memory. The second time he had picked up a knife and fork after Dean had reshown him how, he had done so very slowly and methodically, and Dean could see him talking through each step in his head.

“Wet your hands and face,” Dean instructs, and does the same, “then hold out your hand.” Sam does so, and Dean squeezes a healthy amount of shaving foam into his palm. “Okay, so you lather this all over where you want to shave.” Dean starts to lather up his own face, and Sam looks for a moment, then copies him, very precisely applying the foam. “Good,” says Dean, and before he thinks better of it, he reaches up and dabs at a spot Sam’s missed near his left ear.

“So, now we’re ready to go.” Dean hands Sam his razor. “The important thing is to always shave with the grain, you know, the direction of the hair. Otherwise it hurts like a bitch, and you’ll probably end up cutting yourself.” Sam nods again; he doesn’t say much during these type of sessions, but Dean knows he has Sam’s full undivided attention. Dean demonstrates a first stroke, and nods at Sam to try the same. He does, successfully shaving a small stripe, and Dean bumps his shoulder happily. “There you go, dude, you can totally do it.”

“Yeah,” Sam smiles, and he shaves another stripe, going for another.

“Hey, whoa,” Dean stops him. “Gotta rinse out the blade.” He swishes his razor into the water, and motions for Sam to do the same. “Carry on,” he says. “Gotta lot of beard to cover on that face of yours.”

“Shut up,” says Sam, but his movements are slightly more confident, and Dean is, almost inexplicably, proud of him. He remembers the first time he taught Sam to do this, and the feeling’s the same, possibly even stronger, that Sam’s come through all this, and he’s still Dean’s brother and he’s still here.

Dean finishes up before Sam, but he stays and supervises, guiding Sam’s hand on a couple of occasions around the more tricky bits. Sam smiles at him, and Dean grins back. When he’s reteaching Sam, nothing else matters and nothing else is important, just this, being with his brother.

“Ow,” says Sam, suddenly, and he’s almost done, but he’s nicked himself with the edge of the blade, and he’s bleeding.

“It’s fine,” says Dean, ripping off a square of toilet paper. “Happens to the best of us.” He reaches over to Sam, and presses the little square over the cut. “You’ll live,” he decides, and pats Sam’s shoulder, but Sam surprises him and pulls him into a tight embrace. “Hey,” Dean exhales, but Sam’s breath is warm on his neck, and his new smooth face is pressed against his, and there’s bits of foam there, but this is Sam in his arms, warm and whole and complete. “Hey,” Dean repeats, and he puts his arms around his brother, holds him close.

“Thank you,” Sam mumbles into Dean’s skin, and Dean doesn’t say anything else, just squeezes a little bit tighter. Sam can’t remember a lot of little things, but he’s trying, and he remembers how to hug his brother, and really, right now, Dean doesn’t want anything else.


End file.
